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From the Dome Car: Train 12 Track 4 (May-June, 2003)

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  Thoughts about what constituted the transition era are in this Dome Car. For me, it was the 1990s on the CP Rail when that railway was undergoing some transitions, or about to, in terms of liveries and locomotives. (When this was written, I didn’t yet have any AC4400 power; those units came later.) I also wrote about retirement—a long way off for me back then, but now a reality as I enter the retirement process. What I was told back then still seems true; that it is actually easier to build a layout while younger than when one is older and has no sense of urgency about time anymore. And I end on a optimistic note about the NMRA convention in Toronto; that optimism would soon be tested.   When people ask me what era I model, I tell them the golden age—the transition era of the mid-1990s on CP Rail.   Of course, that's not what most people think when they hear those words. For most people, the transition era means 1950-60, the time when steam was giving way to die...